Jurassic - rulebook & player aid

[knotty crane]

Help make the Jurassic rulebook more accessible!

[sonic storm]

When stacking two Thagomizer cards, I think I would roll the die twice (as opposed to taking twice the value of a single roll). Correct? (The rulebook says this can be stacked, but doesn't clarify how.)

[knotty crane]

This trait works the same way as other traits. Each trait does the thing stated on the card.

It seems like you already figure it out the answer when you posted, which case the rules were sufficient for you. What I need to hear is when the rules are insufficient to figure something out. That’s when there’s a problem that I need to address.

[sonic storm]

I saw it as an ambiguity and how I thought it should be resolved. Posting here is to confirm that I resolved it the way it was intended and confirm that the rules reach the clarity level you need.
I'm trying to improve my feedback by including how I think it resolves.

[rotund dirge]

I know you mentioned changing “defending” to “evading”, and some cards use the term evading (thagomizer) while other traits use “when hunted”. I think it’s easier to follow and understand if it is “hunts” and “is hunted”. Just get rid of defending and evading altogether.

[flat plover]

Which cards were causing this confusion for you? Did the changing terminology between "evading" and "when hunted" lead to some confusion or were you able to figure it out? When the Nature rules are updated we are hoping the confusion will be reduced.

[knotty crane]

I think you’re right. The term Hunting and Hunted clearly go together. I’ll move things in that direction when I go through the traits again.

How about the icon names? There is an icon that represents your Hunt value. What should the other icon represent? I’m still thinking it should represent the species’ Evade value. Thoughts? It seems weird for it to represent the species’ Hunted value.

The two traits that will be changed are Horns and Thagomizer.

[knotty crane]

Thanks. Yeah, posting what you expect the answer to be is helpful. If you’re wrong, then there’s an issue I need to address. If you’re right, I’m probably happy to let it be unless it took an inordinate amount of time to figure out the right answer.

Sorry if I came across as curt.

[tight heron]

I think clarity is good. Ambiguities can cause arguments, which can result in less fun.
I want a game that is clear, rather than having to Google a thread on BGG to find out what a clarification is.
There may be other cards where having a clarification in how cards stack would be good thing. 💙

[knotty crane]

Agreed! But what is clear to one person can cause confusion for another person. The goal is to create a document that works for the most number of people.

[knotty crane]

Please use this form for any specific suggestion that will improve the rulebook: https://forms.gle/R8gTiXJSDiUSsXNKA

[warped hollow]

Did there use to be a rule about how the components (population tokens, size tokens) were limited in Jurassic? I remember that being a thing but I'm not seeing it anymore. We ran out (of population) earlier than ever, and if we would have had 2 less we would have been in the awkward position of not being able to give everyone a new species at the start of the round. As far as I know, there is nothing in the rules to address what happens in this case.

and this was with a 3 player game. With 5 we guaranteed would not have been able to give all 5 players their fifth species.

[slender cliff]

How did it even run out in the first place? I would be convinced if it's Rainforest, but it happened with the Jurassic?

[warped hollow]

You never lose population tokens in Jurassic, so they go pretty quick. Especially since high population is the number 1 way to win the game. there are 50 population tokens, and in a three player game 15 will be needed to start new species. So that leaves 25, and each player only needs to buy 8 in order to run out. You get 5 cards a round, so if you spend 2-3 of them on population each round, you're basically guaranteed to run out. But also, Invasive Predator kept scooping up population tokens too - probably around 5.

[rotund dirge]

Population tokens play the same in Jurassic as in base nature, they go up one population per discarded card. New species are born at one body size and one population unless another of your species lost one during the last round. Invasive does give you more population but only if another whole species went extinct. I could see population tokens becoming rarer if you are playing rain forest but if that is the case population loss is not recycled to newly born species. If three players discard say three cards per turn for 3 more pop. each (12 tokens total for all players combined) to make each species 4 population each round, yes it would be 60 tokens by round 5 if no species lost any population along the way, but that would also mean you are eating 12 food then 24 food then 36 food then 48 food eaten in round 4.

[sonic storm]

FWIW, our 3 player game last night of Rainforest plus Jurassic had 77 population at the start of the final feeding round.

[warped hollow]

Wow! 27 over the official "cap". Nice to see we're not the only one with the issue.

[knotty crane]

I don’t think there is an official cap. We’re in the process of figuring out the player count and how many components to include in each box.

We have 60 population tokens written internally as on the component sheet, but that’s not taking specific modules into account. We’re still trying to figure out the best way to deal with the extra components people will need for extra rounds (when adding modules) and for specific modules like the Rainforest.

[tight heron]

Had a thought about “Apex Predator” in response to someone asking in another channel what the term meant.

I believe the scientific definition is “no other species hunts it”.
So, while humans do “hunt” tigers, we don’t hunt tigers for food. So a tiger is still an apex predator.

It made me reflect on the Apex Predator Card in Nature. I.

I was wondering if part of the mechanics for the Apex Predator trait was that the trait could be lost if another species hunted them for food (so, excluding parasites if those ever become a thing).

Just a thought.

[knotty crane]

Thematically it makes a lot of sense. I’d have to think about whether there is a simple way to write that on the card.

[earnest temple]

The Jurassic Rulebook says maximum size is doubled ... flying species can grow to size 4, however the flight rulebook page 3 top says Avian species have a maximum size of 1.
Not sure which is correct.

• One mentions "flying" the other "avian." Do they mean the same though? If yes, could be standardized

[glacial cloud]

I think the flight rulebook is not updated yet

[knotty crane]

Yeah, we’re still working on the updated Flight module. It’s been a tough one to get right.

[earnest temple]

Got it, all clear then :)

[knotty crane]

Jurassic - rulebook & player aid

[rapid walrus]

For Jurassic player aid, it would be helpful to have an example of how pack hunting's benefits apply with the plus one hunting in the corner. You could write 'A species with pack hunting and one population token, would get two hunt value from pack hunting.' To make room for this example, remove the text 'While pack hunting increases a species' hunt value

For the Jurassic player aid, it is not clear why elusive mentions the defend value but no other cards' descriptions mention the hunt or defend value. The mentioning of hunt, forage, and defend is not consistently mentioned on player aids, which may be misleading or confusing to players.

[knotty crane]

I think the confusion is that an icon without a number does change the stat. The icon is there to let you (and others) know that the stat is modified, but you have to read the text to learn how it gets modified.

Let me know how we could improve the graphic design to make it more clear.

[rapid walrus]

That makes sense now. Thank you for the explanation. I totally missed that to begin with (maybe because I glossed over the rulebook). One idea (though maybe not a good one) is to not put numbers on any of the cards by the icons on the side (but keep the symbols), and instead describe all bonuses in the descriptions. This will add more words to some cards, but make the tags all mean the same thing (essentially all tags would say 'hey, this attribute is modified, look at the text below'). Most of the tags already don't have numbers anyways, so moving the description to the bottom won't change most of the cards. This also might lower the barrier to picking up the game.

Another option is for the cards that don't have a number, to remove the symbols as well (but keep the same background color). For example, pack hunting would have a red bar and fast would have a grey one (my screen has odd color display so I might have gotten the colors wrong). This might not be very color blind friendly, but since it is just an indication to read the text, the game is still fully playable (and testing with common color blindness can mitigate it more). You could change the ends of the background color to make the tags color blind friendly (cylinder for forage, square for defend, and pointed tip for hunt).

Another alternative if you don't think the first ideas (or in addition) would be an improvement would be to modify page 8 of the rulebook to have one of the the example cards without a number and indicate that without a number it has no effect. The examples of creatures imply that, but the text should explicitly state that if there is no number, it has no specific in game effect.

[knotty crane]

I'm thinking that all of the number should have a "+" in front of them to communicate that it's in addition to the base size. Then perhaps we can put a "*" before the icon for the traits that have something more complicated than a static number. Do you think that would work?

[rapid walrus]

I really like that idea. That would make it so much clearer!

[silver canyon]

What Numbers are on the thagomizer die?

[knotty crane]

0, 0, 3, 4, 5, 6

[silver canyon]

Okay thank you